If you are having trouble with drivers that are installed using the "Addition Drivers" tool included in LinuxMint, that is when you should try this method, if the drivers installed using that tool work for you, there is no reason to do this. Also if you are an eperiencedlinux user, and want to experiment with the latest Nvidia drivers, then this is for you.This is for current Nvidia graphics card support only, this will not work for legacy cards.This also will not work on "Hybrid" (laptops that have both an Intel ow power GPU, and an Nvidia discrete/standard GPU) tose require you to use a seperate method, or change settings in you BIOS

Ok, a lot of people seem to be having major issue getting their Nvidia gfx card drivers installed, so I decided to write up a little tutorial on how to get them installed, and working, the best way that I have found.1: First, identify you Nvidia card, for me, it's an Nvidia GTX460-OC, so I can use the latest and greatest. Next thing you have to do is go http://www.nvidia.com/content/global/global.php, and select your country/region, for me, it's "USA/Canada". Or, if you like, you can just skip all the crap, and go directly to the drivers download site, which is located here at the Nvidia driver download section. This will bring you to the Nvidia "Manual Driver Search"Once you are here, all you have to do is use the dropdown selection to select your card, 32, or, 64 bit Linux, and your language, click on start search, and select the most recent driver for your card. Download the file to someplace easy to get to, I would recommend downloading it to your users home folder, (/home/<your_user_name>), as you're going to have to get to this folder from a command line.

2: Once you have the driver downloaded you need to make it executable, to do this, just right click on the file, and select "properties"this will open the properties dialog window, once that window is open, go to the "permissions" tab, and click to add a "check mark" to the "Allow executing file as program"This is going to allow you to execute the installer. At this point, I would also recommend renaming the file to something that is both easy to remember, as well as type into a command, I personally usually rename it to n.run, you can rename it to whatever you like.

3: Now this is where things start to get slightly more difficult, but don't worry, it's really not that complicated at all, but from this point on I am not going to be able to show you screen shots due to the fact that the rest of the install has to be done in in a command line interface. To get to a cli, (command line interface), all you have to do is press ctrl+alt+f1 at the same time, this will take to what is called "tty1", once you are there, you will see something telling you to login, you can easily login as your normal user, just type your username, hit anter, and then it will ask you for your password, enter it, and press enter, and then you will be logged in.

4: Now that you are logged in, you have to shut down the Display Manager. If you are using a recent version of LinuxMint, such as Mint 14, you are most likely using MDM, or Mate Display Manager, (if you're using KDE, then you're most likely using kdm, or K Display Manager), for this tutorial, we will be using MDM. Now, to shutdown mdm, you ust have to enter the command

this will shut down MDM, and you can now go on with beginning of the driver install.

5: Now you have to go to the directory where you downloaded the driver, if you downloaded it to your users home folder, you are already there, so you can go on the next step, however, if you downloaded it to someplace else, you need to "CD", or change directory, to where you downloaded it, so if you downloaded it to say /home/<your_username>/Downloads, then you would issue the command

6: Now we need to start the install, to do this we issue the command to run the Nvidia driver installer, for this tutorial we are going to use the name that I showed you earlier, "n.run", if you named it something else, you would use that name in place of it. The command you need to run is

Again, remember that the names are case sensitive. Once the installer starts, you will be given a license agreement, use you arrow keys to select "Accept", and hit enter. At this point you are going to see some things about modules and other messages, just select "yes" or "continue" or whatever it is asking you do. Now things start to get interesting, because Mint, and most other distros come with the free open source nouveau nvidia driver, it has to be blacklisted before you will able to install, and use the Nvidia driver, but the Nvidia driver installer has a nice little feature, it will try to do it for you, and it will ask if you want it to do so, select yes, and it should take of it for you. Unfortunately, at this point you need to reboot, so that the system can unload the nouveau nvidia driver module from the kernel, which will allow you to continue, so reboot the system, and when it comes back one, one of two things will happen, either you will 1: be in a cli with a login prompt, or 2: be in a low graphics mode, in which case, you will need to hit ctrl+alt+f1 at the same time to get to tty1, and then login there. Either way, you are going to have to once again shut down MDM by issuing the command

now that all that is done, we can get on with the actual install of the driver.

7: Now that the nouveau nvidia driver module has been blacklisted, and everything is ready, you will once again go to the directory where you downloaded the driver by following the instructions outlined earlier in the tutorial. Once there, you will once again issue the command

to start the driver install. Again you're going to go through the install using the arrow keys to select Accept to the license agreement, and continue, and follow the instructions, and the driver will install. Now that the driver is installed, there is one more step before your driver will be ready to work on your system.

8: Now that the driver is installed, you have to configure the system to use the driver, luckily, once again, Nvidia has a tool to do this for you. At this point you need to issue the command

This will start your display manager, and, if everything went as it should have, you will be presented with your login screen, allowing you to login to your desktop, with full hardware accelerated 3D support for your full enjoyment.

hit ctrl+alt+f1, that will make sure you get back to the tty1, sometimes when you shut down the Xserver, it switches you to the tty7, not sure why it does it sometimes, but it's easy to just get back to tty1.

WARNING: The modprobe configuration file to disable Nouveau, /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-installer-disable-nouveau.conf, is already present. Please be sure you have rebooted your system since that file was written. If you have rebooted, then Nouveau may be enabled for other reasons, such as being included in the system initial ramdisk or in your X configuration file. Please consult the NVIDIA driver README and your Linux distribution's documentation for details on how to correctly disable the Nouveau kernel driver.

McLovin wrote:hit ctrl+alt+f1, that will make sure you get back to the tty1, sometimes when you shut down the Xserver, it switches you to the tty7, not sure why it does it sometimes, but it's easy to just get back to tty1.

Doesn't work with Nadia on an ASUS X51vz. That's my default check when hung up changing video as this problem goes back to the 1980's with BSD.

I thought part of the appeal (maybe I've been misinformed) of Linux Mint is that you get the proprietary drivers by default, or at least just checking some box to install them. Is there no package for the proprietary drivers? So now what happens if you update the kernel? When you reboot X is gonna crash so you gotta go re-build a new kernel interface? This is why I gave up on 3D acceleration years ago and just used the open source drivers.

Edit: Went ahead and installed the drivers from Nvidia and it looks like it built/installed something that will supposedly take care of kernel updates. I also had to tweak a setting in the BIOS to use "Discrete" graphics rather than "Nvidia Optimus" there was also another setting that said OS will detect and set to Optimus, so I disabled that too and it works swimingly.

Man, I took me a good 40 minutes to figure out it was "mdm". When I googled, all I got was lightdm and/or gdm. Maybe we should make a thread that explicitly states that its 'mdm' in Cinnamon? What about Mate, lighdm probably?!

2) When I installed the latest 3.7 kernel my 304.xx driver was unrecognised so I had to delete all files associated with the old driver and go through the steps given in this thread. 310.xx has no issues, so far, with the 3.7 kernel.

3) When I used the virtual console, or CLI mode, to install the drivers my screen would constantly fade to black when in any tty. I tried everything out there. Playing with grub, installing additional software, deleting all graphics-associated files etc. In the end, probably by simple curiosity, I changed the colour modes on my display "Asus VE247H" from "Scene Mode" to "Standard Mode" and what do you know? No more fading! I was about to punch a hole in the freakin' screen. Ohh well, If someone out there has a display like mine and a similar problem, try this out. My monitor is connected through HDMI so results might vary.

Steamix wrote:Man, I took me a good 40 minutes to figure out it was "mdm". When I googled, all I got was lightdm and/or gdm. Maybe we should make a thread that explicitly states that its 'mdm' in Cinnamon? What about Mate, lighdm probably?!

I think mdm is the fork of the old gnome display manager that was created as part of the MATE project. It's the GUI that lets you log in and starts up your desktop environment.

mdm is what is used in Mint for Cinnamon, and MATE. I think Clem may be going for XDM for the XFCE build when he does it, and KDE obviously uses KDM.

Steamix wrote:Great thread. Found out very useful stuff but a bit too late I already spent like a full day with these drivers. I would like to add some extra info.3) When I used the virtual console, or CLI mode, to install the drivers my screen would constantly fade to black when in any tty. I tried everything out there. Playing with grub, installing additional software, deleting all graphics-associated files etc. In the end, probably by simple curiosity, I changed the colour modes on my display "Asus VE247H" from "Scene Mode" to "Standard Mode" and what do you know? No more fading! I was about to punch a hole in the freakin' screen. Ohh well, If someone out there has a display like mine and a similar problem, try this out. My monitor is connected through HDMI so results might vary.

Cheers

This is due to a power saving feature built into most LCD/LED monitors and TVs, it fades out to save power not lighting pixels that are going to be black, the issue with that in CLI is that most of the screen is black, causing issues with the lighting of the screen.

RodneyLee wrote:I get to the part where I shut down MDM, then get nothing but a blank screen, no command line to type in commands at all, woul dlove to get my gt 430 working fullythanks

OK I got past that part, printing instructions helpped, now I have bailed out of install because of distribution provided "Pre-install" script not working, continue or exit, I exitedcoul dI have gone on/, was this a needed component?

I'm using Asus N61J laptop with GT325M. I tried installing these drivers and only had one "error" which I didn't think was a major one: The NVIDIA 32-bit compatibility OpenGL libraries are to be installed relative to the top-level prefix (chroot) '/emul/ia32-linux'; however, this directory does not exist. Please consult your distribution's documentation to confirm the correct top-level installation prefix for 32-bit compatiblity libraries.

But then after restarting mdm my screen shrunk to 640x480 (like safe mode Windows) or something just like it had when I'd tried to install nvidia via the package manager. Is there a way to undo this without having to reinstall mint? I just want to do software dev in linux and I swear I won't bother about stupid video drivers that I've wasted 2 days on.

Edit: In addition, now when I try to sudo mdm stop from tty1, the laptop just goes into a blank screen with a blinking cursor and I have to press the power button to halt and restart it.

lemonickous wrote:I'm using Asus N61J laptop with GT325M. I tried installing these drivers and only had one "error" which I didn't think was a major one: The NVIDIA 32-bit compatibility OpenGL libraries are to be installed relative to the top-level prefix (chroot) '/emul/ia32-linux'; however, this directory does not exist. Please consult your distribution's documentation to confirm the correct top-level installation prefix for 32-bit compatiblity libraries.

But then after restarting mdm my screen shrunk to 640x480 (like safe mode Windows) or something just like it had when I'd tried to install nvidia via the package manager. Is there a way to undo this without having to reinstall mint? I just want to do software dev in linux and I swear I won't bother about stupid video drivers that I've wasted 2 days on.

Edit: In addition, now when I try to sudo mdm stop from tty1, the laptop just goes into a blank screen with a blinking cursor and I have to press the power button to halt and restart it.

Halp please

Give your bios settings a look. See my earlier post for more info. I seen the same thing with the optimus settings. Changed to discrete and works flawlessly.

My apologies for my previous post which I am now editing (i was half asleep).I'm on an Acer M4810-TG and I downloaded the latest nvidioa driver from the website as stated in the beginning of the thread. I went through with the install but this has somehow gotten rid of the GLX extensions that are needed to run the Cinnamon Desktop. My resolution is really really small and it looks like I'm in the Gnome desktop. My laptop has both an on board video card and an Nvidia 640M LE video card. I'm at a loss as to how to get the extensions installed again. When I look at the settings to see which driver is running it says "fallback". I've gone through the package manager to see if there was anything to download that would work bu, no such luck. Is this something where I need to re-download the drivers for the onboard video card (4000M series)?